The Battle of Bedtime

“Not yet,” I think. “Don’t….”

Tired baby wails float through the monitor and I can’t help but smile.

“No patience,” I comment to my wife.

She takes a sip of her wine and nods. “If there’s one thing a baby will teach you…it’s patience.”

“Sssshhhhh,” resumes the quiet sounds of Uncle Jet shoooshing his niece.

I snuggle deeper into the sofa cushions and imagine my poor brother in the darkness… fumbling through his first time putting Norah to sleep and I can’t help but be amazed at how much baby data I have learned in the last nine and a half months.

I used to shake my head in confusion as parents described the subtle differences between their child’s hungry cry and dirty diaper cry. My head hurt trying to wrap my mind around the multitude of minute signals they were constantly picking up on in order to ensure a non-screaming infant. I found it hard to believe I could commit so much to memory.

And yet, as I sit on the couch listening to my brother, I know that there was a time not so long ago when I was as clueless.

I commend Jet for his willingness to venture into this task. He comes over every Monday night to watch Heroes with us. Usually he sits out on the couch with whichever parent is not locked away with Norah, and then later offers to watch Norah any time we’d like some time away. A generous offer, and completely sincere…but unrealistic given that he has never changed a diaper nor coaxed a screaming child to sleep. So, we would occasionally offer for him to come over and watch Norah while we were here.

“We’ll just act like we’re not around and you can practice,” we’d offer.

“Yeah, we should do that,” he’d agree…but somehow this just never seemed to be how he wanted to spend a spare evenings.

So, this night, as we took Norah from her bath, Moonshot asked Jet if he’d like to take a turn putting Norah to bed. He agreed without hesitation.

I tried to give a few tips here and there before we abandoned them, but too many details would just overwhelm him. And really, there’s just no way to describe the relevant information anyway. There are no simple words to explain the way her muscles relax, giving you the go ahead to move her from your arms to the crib. There’s no good way to instruct someone on the thousands of tiny tricks associated with transferring a barely sleeping child onto a mattress. And the nuances of opening and reclosing the squeaky nursery door or which floorboards creak the loudest are difficult at best to convey. One must suffer through trial and error with the ever-looming penalty of angry screaming as a motivating factor to internalize these lessons.

And so I can do nothing but smile at my lovely wife, sip my wine, and cross my fingers for my brother as he ventures into the trenches for the first time.

Several more false starts are broadcast across the speaker and finally we hear the click-screech of the door as he makes his escape. Norah complains and I can hear her rolling over, but luck is with young Jet…she is tired enough to let the noise go unpunished.

He emerges with a haggard look on his face. I recognize that face. He accepts a glass of wine even though he doesn’t like wine. He says it’s because he is planning a trip to the wineries over the Memorial Day weekend with a wonderful Arkansan girl who is coming up to visit him and he feels he needs to learn to enjoy the drink…but I suspect that the battle of wills with Norah has something to do with his eager grip on the wine glass. I recognize that grip.

We start the show but I can’t help feeling like a battle-weary Sergeant. My weapons are stuffed animals and a gentle stroke of the forehead. I am well-trained in the art of the binky-decoy maneuver and have been desensitized to the sharp pain of nostril pinching. And have learned it all in nine and a half months.

We savor our wine.

I feel we’ve earned it.